SpaceHack: “BureauCrazy” App wins Hackathon in Berlin

In cooperation with Facebook, REDISchool, Techfugees and Silicon Allee, WELCOME organised a hackathon gathering more than 200 programmers, designers, social workers, urban planners, architects and others, with and without refugee status, to come together and develop technology-based solutions to challenges facing refugees on their journey.

As part of the StartupEurope initiative,winners of previous hackathons and a selection of the best participants from WELCOME ecosystems were flown to Berlin to work on creative and sustainable solutions that could be implemented in their home countries upon return, making it a real pan-European initiative.

The Winners

26 teams came together over the weekend. The three winners were selected based on their concept, relevance and feasibility:

“Bureaucrazy” helps those whose native tongue is not German fill out bureaucratic forms. The app translates the forms into the desired language and automatically starts filling in standard specifications such as name, date of birth, address, etc.

“Talk to Hadi” is an online psychologist that offers fugitives psychological care via smartphone. As well as offering general advice it also had a telephone service support.

“Refstart”,who placed third, is an online market place for women refugees. With this app, women can sell hand-made products while also networking and meeting local residents.

The sponsors have highlighted two additional teams:

Relayr showcased “Wallfarm,” which aims to grow hydroponic produce on the walls of refugee homes and camps. Kontakt.io presented“Ammarify”, which showed how Beacon video monitoring can be used to mentor refugees in their own language.

Spacehack winner “Bureaucrazy” presented on June 9th in front of investors and politicians at the Startup Europe Summit in Berlin. The ReDI school students who were at the conference had their Demo Day and presented their projects and achievements.
More information at http://www.startupeuropesummit.com/hackathon/

About WELCOME

WELCOME is a project under the Startup Europe initiative that aims to build a pan-European tech startup ecosystem. To that end, Welcome links startups from five vibrant EU ecosystems — Berlin, Dublin, Madrid, Milan and Salamanca, to customers, VCs, business angels, corporates, mentors and other startups. The project targets aspiring entrepreneurs as well as early and late stage startups with activities that enable them to grow across borders and access the right combination of finance while helping corporates identify the best talents.